At 30-Something, I've Joined the iPod Generation

A little more than a month ago, I entered the land of the little white earphones. </p>
<p>Since getting an iPod for my birthday, I have soared in iPod heaven and stumbled through iPod hell.</p>
<p>I am computer-competent, but not computer-savvy. Now well past age 30, I am catching glimpses of my inner old person who will soon rely on my children to get the family computer to operate.</p>
<p>Even so, I couldn't resist the sleek, miniature beauty that is iPod.</p>
<p>In one tiny unit smaller than my high school calculator, an iPod can hold and play hundreds of songs. Forget about carrying piles of compact disks. Forget about the song skipping when you do. Forget about scratches and dust.</p>
<p>It's a beautiful thing. One glance makes my heart swell with the wonderment my grandmother must have felt watching her first television program.</p>
<p>I can take whole drawers of my old CDs and put them in a tiny format, one I can search and review quickly.</p>
<p>Another wonder is the online music store iTunes. Sitting at home, I can sample endless songs. It reminds me of my college days when I would spend hours browsing through CD stores sampling displays. </p>
<p>I've always struggled to buy music. My eclectic music tastes are compounded by a need to hear the songs I'm purchasing. My iPod contains pop and hard rock as well as rap, hip-hop, choral religious songs, soundtracks, and classical, with a hefty smattering of children's fare.</p>
<p>Best of all, in iTunes I don't need to pay for an entire album. I can pick a song or two from rapper OutKast without buying a dozen songs I hate.</p>
<p>Plus, I can stumble upon wonderful songs I never would have heard or considered before, like soulful Alexi Murdoch. Or I can find the religious choral music that seems to free my writing muse. I discovered a recording of "Miserere mei, Deus." This song is so beautiful that it can make the ferry seagulls seem angelic while you listen.</p>
<p>Giddy discovering this new toy, I plunked down a fair chunk of money on music — $9.99 for an album, 99 cents for a song. (This adds up quickly if you don't pay attention.)</p>
<p>But time marches on. I've discovered the less-than-great things about the iPod.</p>
<p>First, I have severe earphone entanglement issues. Modern earphones are tiny, light and subtle. Their cords writhe in my purse like the snakes in Medusa's hair. Every time I use my new toy, I spend at least three minutes untangling jumbled cords.</p>
<p>Maybe it's my kids. They will abscond with the iPod into the wilderness of toys, dancing like Oz flying monkeys to the "High School Musical" soundtrack. By the time I find the iPod again, they've shared individual earphones while imitating a family room tornado.</p>
<p>But my greatest frustration is the formatting issues. Songs purchased on iTunes or played on iPods are formatted as MPEG-4. Their predecessors were MP3 players that played the MP3 format.</p>
<p>It's easy to transform a song on a disk or in an MP3 format into an MPEG-4 format you can play on an iPod. For those of us who are not incredibly tech savvy, it is nearly impossible to make an iTunes song useable on anything but an iPod or personal computer. </p>
<p>In other words, if I pay nearly $10 for an iTunes song, I can only play it on my computer in the iTunes program or on my iPod. I can burn it to a disk, but it sounds like a hamster on a business call on my older units.</p>
<p>No big deal, I thought, until I made a slideshow for my parents. I planned to use photos of their grandchildren taken this summer during their first visit together in years.</p>
<p>After hours arranging photos in Adobe Photoshop, it was time to add the perfect song. I chose "Orange Sky" by Alexi Murdoch.</p>
<p>No dice. I need an MP3 version of the song. To get it, I have to pay for the album again on another site.</p>
<p>My friends suggested I just do what college students have done for years — steal it. Never mind that I've paid for it once. Never mind that I try to be extremely ethical about respecting copyrights. Never mind that this song has been used in several TV shows and car commercials with the artist's blessing.</p>
<p>Computers can be a blessing and a curse. I feel like I'm in a modern reenactment of the Tower of Babel. Luckily, I have until Christmas to decide whether to buy the album again, pick some other song, or get my 6-year-olds to figure out how to rip it to MP3.</p>
<p>Heidi Evans can be reached at heidi-evans@hotmail.com.